To the Editor:
A volume entitled Alemania y el bloqueo internacional de Venezuela 1902/03 appeared in 1977 as a publication of the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Relations. It lists Holger H. Herwig and me as coauthors on its cover and on its first title page. Its second title page correctly reproduces that which accompanied the manuscript when it was submitted: Krupp Salvos at Fort Libertador: Germany and the International Blockade of Venezuela, 1902/03: A Study in Gunboat Diplomacy, Holger H. Herwig, with the assistance of J. León Helguera, Vanderbilt University.
My part in this book was one of assistance only, and in facilitating publication. I was not a coauthor. An attempt is currently being made to determine why this error was made.
I hereby request that, in citing this book, the correct version be used.
J. León Helguera
To the Editor:
In the May 1978 issue of the HAHR (p. 358), appears an insulting review of Dr. Gustave Anguizola’s The Panama Canal: Isthmian Political Instability, 1821-1976. We can surmise that either the reviewer knows very little about the subject matter treated in this book, or he believes this field is only his to exploit.
His charges of “superficially researched” and “awkwardly written” are vindictively untenable clichés. The manuscript, when reviewed by the National Writers Club, was given highest marks. The book’s style—fluid and bilingual—helps those attempting to study Spanish comparatively.
The labeling of both the author and Congressman Flood as “conservative," because they joined with the majority of Americans against the canal treaties, is not valid. Flood is, in fact, a liberal; and the reviewer would have no way of knowing Anguizola’s political predilections.
We reglet the favoritism of the HAHR in allowing this single reviewer to monopolize the reviews of all books on Panama (vide same edition, p. 358). To print Joseph Arbena to the exclusion of others is to be quite shortsighted.*
B. Orchard Lisle
Fort Worth, Texas
Thomas Tune
Arlington, Texas
Professor Arbena exercised his option not to respond to Mr. Lisle and Mr. Tune’s letter to the editor.
Editors’ Note: The editors would like to point out that recent reviewers of books on Panama include Charles D. Ameringer, Lester D. Langley, and Sheldon Liss, among others.
